I'm looking to lose muscle and really struggle to drop any mass. I've been vegan about 2 years now, i do martial arts, cycling and yoga and i never seem to be able to shift any mass. I don't do any weight training at all. My diets mainly raw fruit with lots of veg, nuts grains beans etc... My motivation is generally for speed as i feel better for the sports i do when i'm lighter. I beleive a lot of this is down to my body type / genetics as i've always found it fairly easy to gain mass and retain it but losing it is another thing. My weight is very regular with hardly any yo yo'ing. I'm 5 10" and about 80kg. Any tips would be great, Cheers.﻿

Thanks for the info. I feel better when i'm lighter for sure with the sports that i do and losing some mass i feel will improve my movement but it just doesn't seem to want to shift at the moment. I'm not doing any weight training at all but i feel maybe my main sport ( Brazilian Jiu Jitsu ) maintains my muscle mass. It's fairly intense and seems to regulate my weight as i don't seem to budge and retain muscle fairly easily.

I'll look lower my protein but going calorie deficient i'm concious of tiredness and fatigue. I eat a fairly hard carb diet which gives me the energy i need as i train almost daily. Should dropping my protein intake do the trick you think without losing energy?

Lighter is better for speed but strength and speed are related at the same time. Like I'm pretty sure nobody in my tae kwon do class would bother arguing if I claimed to have the quickest punches, it's not because of years of punching (I'm a few months back to training after 11 years off), it's from years of bench pressing.

But yeah, calorie deficit, it's just the only way to loose weight of any sort. How to feel best on it is personal preference so you might need to play around. Personally I feel best with re-feed days (one day per week eat a bit over maintenance) and intermittent fasting really works for some people. Less protein will make your body somewhat more likely to burn muscle but it will still prefer fat- it's the easier energy to access. Though I can't imagine loosing fat is really an issue and the leaner you get the more inclined your body is to burn muscle.

I think the next steps i'll take is to start to drop some of the higher protein based foods that i eat, especially the fatty ones. Organic peanut butter and some other foods do come to mind straight away. I'm still keen on keeping my carb intake fairly high as i do train a lot and don't want this to affect my performance and mood as i've experienced this in the past.I know my body is prone to retain muscle and losing mass has always been harder for me than gaining and i do wonder that maybe this is just the weight my body 'feels' best at as i eat well and healthy and feel pretty good. My weight doesn't fluctuate and i feel strong. Again, i would like to lose some mass especially for my yoga progression and less weight on the bike but BJJ is my main sport so maybe my body is conditioned for what i do the most. I'd imagine if i dropped the BJJ and cycled and did yoga more maybe my body shape would change and possible lose some mass.